Four Lies and One Truth About Why Hans Wears his Gloves
by Soubrettina
Summary: It seems everyone has a different story about why Prince Hans is almost never seen without white silk gloves on. Sure, there's a reason for this. He can give you a reason. Actually, he can give you lots of reasons. Some of them might even be true. A series of five drabbles (well, two drabbles, one double drabble, one trible and one hexable)


**Warmth**

The truth is very simple. What he doesn't see is why anyone else doesn't see it. He doesn't see how they cut themselves off to how disgusting it is- touching each other all the time- any child knows that every human's skin emits sweat and grease all day long. If it were a beast most people would pull away from that quivering warmth, the film of oil on the fingers, the smells that never quite washed away.

Goes to show what revolting stupid pigs people are. He'd rather keep a film of silk between himself and them.

**Eruption**

He never looks at it, or talks about it.

It might have been a good idea, school. Hans didn't like home and home didn't like Hans much- both were agreed that home wasn't working on him.

The trouble was, schoolfellows can be like brothers, if not more so.

What happened four weeks later was never certain. It was true that Westergard Minor probably did save the lives of many of his fellows by raising the alarm when the fire broke out. And he probably did save Guy von Humpdening's life- if not his leg- by putting out his burning blankets with his own hands.

The trouble starts when they find the marks of the lamp-oil, that was never meant to be in the dormitory in the first place. It doesn't help when Hans does claim that it wasn't him, but anyway doesn't see why Count von Humpending is being so ungrateful about a stupid detail like that when his son had started the whole thing when he'd pushed Hans down the stairs.

Hans comes back to the Islands, his long-suffering tutor is re-engaged, silk gloves that don't chafe the scars are purchased, and the matter is never discussed again.

**Like burning**

It's about four months since it occurred to him that there was no real _reason_ to sleep in the nursery, not if the nurse couldn't catch him, and, thanks to the royal palace being woven through with servants' doors and hidden corridors, she never has for more than a few minutes. After a few weeks she gave up and just started leaving sandwiches and clean clothes for him in empty rooms.

When he gets tired, he's got a number of nests, lined with little-missed cushions and blankets, in attics and storerooms, where nobody can surprise him. He's even started taking books there, sometimes they're interesting.

But now the summer sun has started breaking through skylights, making the dust flicker. He didn't run away to be stuffily shut up from the sun.

For the first two days he runs free in the deer park, climbing trees and rolling down slopes. He finds a secret pond in the woods and by evening he knows how to swim. He watches the sun set, the stars travel, listens to the sounds of the night, and watches the sun rise. Even the crippling chill of morning is fascinating, and the smell of the dew-soaked grass makes the world of the nursery, with its rules and jeers, seem like a strange dream.

When he's tired, he already knows where there's a warm, secret place for a boy who can climb, and he's not disappointed- the hayloft is even more soft and cushiony than he imagined, filled with bales to three-deep. Even the sounds and smells of the stable are comforting- he's never been taunted by a horse. He borrows a blanket that's still warm and covered with hairs of its last wearer, and pulls out enough hay that he can burrow in.

He doesn't know how long it is before he wakes up- it doesn't matter, he has to get out. He's itching all over, and scratching just makes it _burn_, until he accidently cries out with pain. Light, he needs proper light. He has to see.

When he makes it down the ladder as fast as he dares, he hears a voice- as usual saying: "_hey, look, it's the little prince!" _before he charges to the door. Outside the stalls he starts stripping his clothes off, to see that there are little angry red dots all over his skin, with blotches that have turned pink and thickened. He's so stunned he doesn't try to run away when the groom catches up with him, and suggests giving him a good wash-down with cold water. It makes it feel a bit better, but only for a few minutes- at the suggestion of going and asking his nanny, that's all he wants to hear, and he's off.

He spends the rest of the day swimming, and it goes away eventually. He's sad to give up the hayloft, but the grounds have lots of follies that nobody actually goes into, so he moves a few of his nests outside, and it's never cold enough to bother going back to the house.

After he is, as Magnus puts it, returned to humanity- by way of a new tutor who catches him and beats him soundly until he does as young princes are supposed to- the horses are an acceptable reason to be outdoors, and in time, he gets to call a horse his own, first Gauti, then his gorgeous Sitron. The itch isn't quite worth it though, especially when once it starts with hay it starts with every damn plant in the grounds. But it's still well worth wearing gloves for.

**No smoke**

So she really _can't_ control it.

Perhaps it's her sex that made her this weak, or her frightened father's indulgence. Perhaps the need to control ice had not been urgent enough, early enough, to make her learn what she had to be. There can be a beauty in ice, after all, that a blackened room or scorched garden never has.

Because Hans learned how not to cast magic so long ago that many days he almost forgets that he could. It _is_ possible, to feel nothing, not really. Fear and worry achieve nothing, anger is born of failure, and pain… either act on something or forget it. Theatrics on the inside are for children.

The skill these days is to blend in by playing up on the outside to what's expected of him- because people are sentimental and don't warm to someone who feels as little about his own trials as they care themselves.

For a moment he thinks he might show her- the walls are stone, she has ice… but the beams above are wood and he's well out of practice. It would be too ironic for an over-enthusiastic flame to destroy the castle he's almost won.

Besides… now he thinks about it, he's not sure he _could. _The shape of fire, the scent and feel and rush of it… after all these years, it's gone. It's actually gone. He can't remember it any more than he can remember crying because Nanny was suddenly out of sight.

Elsa's misery is making the cell even colder. Such a shame she's failed- she's beautiful and not a complete fool. But setting her free to haunt the North Mountain until she starves to death is too slow. She'll have to go, sooner than that. He'll see what he can do.

**Liar, Liar...**

Having finally wrestled the trousers on, he gets off the floor and dons the rest of the suit far more quickly, finally standing in front of the mirror to view the results.

Worth every penny, every fitting, and all the time he's spent dressing; his heroic physique is accentuated perfectly. Briefly he wonders if the Queen would be so frigid after all- but he's already on a good heading with the Princess.

He just has a quick glance at his two faults- his absurd ears (whiskers just about disguise them) and his weirdly huge hands, and reassures himself: they're refined by the gloves. It's _perfect_.


End file.
